Susan, I would think the grief over the shortened life, the loss of the potential, the absence of the familiar person, whether loved or not, would be foremost. She doesn't strike me as a Faith type, aware and cynical, but a lady of her time -- If she felt relief right away, I don't think she'd recognize it for what it is. Instead, I think the relief would trickle in slowly, maybe shock at being able to laugh at something "too soon", realizing that she doesn't feel as cramped, as constrained, and building from there.

the absence of the familiar person,

Oh, yeah. They may have had a difficult relationship, but there was still a commonality between them. Someone who knew her reactions, someone I'm assuming she could at least have a conversation with where they both understood the underlying assumptions. Something such as thinking in the morning, "I must remember to make sure there are four eggs poached in a particular way--no, wait. He's not here to eat those anymore."

Deena's absolutely right. The first thing would be shock, and the numbness that accompanies sudden grief of someone close to us, whether it was intimate closeness or not. Sebastian was a pillar of her world as it was, and now the foundations of that life are shaken. She's adrift and, from personal experience, she would probably focus on details she can control, like her wardrobe, and take great pains to get it right because it keeps her from thinking about things she cannot control, or those beginning flutters of relief that any woman in her position would instantly believe to be wrong and bad.

There's a reason they give victims of emotional shock a glass of water, have them sit down, have them focus on something mundane and accomplishable. The hind brain goes on, copes, deals with and assimilates the information, so that the next time the conscious is reminded of it, it's less of a shock. This repeats, over hours, and days, and weeks, until the bereaved is able to take a more comprehensive look at the relationship and make some judgements about it. And also about the immediate future.

(Stupid internet went down while I was trying to post this half an hour ago.)

Is there a reason she married him other than he was suitable? Some characteristic that she authentically respected? She can mourn the loss of that, as well.

She married him when she was 19, on less than a month's acquaintance. She'd been through two London Seasons where she was very popular, since she was lucky enough to be vivacious, quite pretty, and very rich indeed. But she never fell in love, and she was starting to get bored with the social whirl. So when she met Sebastian over the summer, he immediately attracted her with his military demeanor, serious nature, and all-around difference from the other men who'd been courting her. In her youthful inexperience, she mistook infatuation for love and discovered too late that she'd married a control freak with a misogynistic streak.

For most of her marriage, she tries to make the best of it and avoid conflict by at least outwardly complying with his wishes, but in the weeks just before his death she'd hit her breaking point and started openly defying him. As a result, their relationship went from coldly civil to frequent shouting matches. And her last words to him, at the end of such a fight, were "Just go, Sebastian."

OK, keeping in mind that this is sloppy, raw, shitty first draft writing, here's what I've got of her waking up the morning after his death. Does this sound like I'm in the right emotional ballpark?

When she awoke the next morning, the silence disconcerted her. At the very beginning of consciousness, she thought she was back in Scotland, in her own room in the castle. As she came to full awareness, she noticed the warm, heavy air, how narrow and lumpy her bed was, and knew where she was. But it was so quiet. No one snored softly beside her, nor had she been awakened by an impatient hand at her shoulder and a none-too-quiet voice telling her they must march in half an hour’s time. And then she remembered. Sebastian. Gone.

The silence felt wrong. Tonight she’d ask Alex and Helen if she could put a pallet on the floor in the room they were sharing with the children and the maids. It wasn’t as if she’d be spoiling their privacy.

As she sat up, she noticed a familiar dull ache in the pit of her stomach, exactly on schedule. So that was that, then. She would not bear Sebastian a posthumous child. She wept at that, for the first time since learning of his death.

I think that's fine, Susan.

If I may:

Dawn was beginning to lighten the air when she woke. Gods, but her muscles were stiff. She closed her eyes against the growing light and wound the blanket tighter about her, inhaling John’s scent, and hers, together. A smile touched her features. He must have risen already and be about finding breakfast.

John.

Memory flooded her and sleep fled. A nightmare, she must have dreamed….

She reached out to the ground next to where she lay, and it was cold, cold. No one had lain beside her in the night. John was not there, had not been there. The chill seeped up from the ground and into her body despite the blanket, but she did not move to rise.

And later:

Ellen looked away from the fire, off among the trees. She forgot, when she was tired, or preoccupied; she still expected John to come walking into camp, to crouch briefly at the fire and meet her eyes across it. She could see the light in his eyes and the grin that he kept for her alone. She had so much to tell him: how his horse was behaving, how heavy the mail was, how trying it was keeping the petty differences among the rebels from flaring into quarrels. In her mind’s eye, John’s grin widened to a smile and he stood to come to her, and an owl called nearby. Rainwater dripped from an overhanging branch and trickled down the side of her face; it was cold. She shivered, and went to wake Thomas for the next watch.

Susan, is she the type of character who would feel guilty or otherwise convicted of her lack of mourning--in the way one would mourn a much beloved spouse?

Also, the pallet in the room with Alex and Helen...I know I haven't read all of your story, but are Alex and Helen married? If so, would she suggest she keep watch over the children, and given them the privacy of her bed, no matter how cramped?

That's beautiful stuff, Beverly.

Also, the pallet in the room with Alex and Helen...I know I haven't read all of your story, but are Alex and Helen married? If so, would she suggest she keep watch over the children, and given them the privacy of her bed, no matter how cramped?

That's a good idea.

Susan, is she the type of character who would feel guilty or otherwise convicted of her lack of mourning--in the way one would mourn a much beloved spouse?

Hmm. I think she's too pragmatic for that. What she would feel, though, is guilt over putting herself in a position where she can't feel more mournful. She'd wish with even greater strength than before that she hadn't rushed into the marriage, she'd reflect back and wonder if there was anything she could've done differently to enable them to find some kind of harmony, etc. Does that make sense?

I think I might have managed to find something to help me tie Anna's feelings back to my own life, and it was hinted at in this week's drabble--how I felt in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. It wasn't that I wasn't upset, stunned, and grieved--it's just that the way I expressed it, and what I felt should be appropriate institutional responses, were so out of synch with what came to be the general consensus that I kept saying the wrong things which resulted in everything from strange looks to out-and-out accusations that I was a heartless, shallow person who didn't grasp the scope of the tragedy. (That last because I was indignant that people wanted to cancel the rest of the baseball season.) I still get upset just thinking about it. Anyway, maybe I can do something with that out-of-synch feeling, though Anna's circumstances are different in that she knows the rules of being a widow, while AFAICT the only thing that made my 9/11 reactions "wrong" was the fact they ended up being a minority response to unprecedented events.

Susan, I also had some minority reactions to 9/11 and got the stares. I'm sitting her nodding.

A word of caution, though: keep a very close eye on just how much introspection you have her delving into. If she doesn't do more of it during the book, it will stick out like a sore thumb, and appear to be the author writing the author, not the character being the character. Also, if she is going to show those introspective tendencies throughout the book, be very careful about how you write Jack. Two introspective characters will stand a good shot of getting you raised eyebrows, and also have the potential to bury a lot of the action in the story itself.

Susan, I also had some minority reactions to 9/11 and got the stares. I'm sitting her nodding.

Deb, was it you with the Pentagon/Cthulhu comment, and the last thing the hijacker seeing was a big tentacle coming out of the Pentagon? I laughed my ASS off at that.